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The Obduracy of the Capital City
v. 1. Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, stubborn and full of uncleanness, to the oppressing city where violence against the weak and downtrodden was the order of the day.
v. 2. She obeyed not the voice, paying no attention to the Lord's admonitions; she received not correction, the instruction or discipline which was intended to be of benefit to her; she trusted not in the Lord, placing no confidence in His exhortations and promises; she drew not near to her God, she has become indifferent to Jehovah.
v. 3. Her princes within her are roaring lions, bent upon rapine and murder; her judges are evening wolves, driven forth by hunger in the evening, their greed being insatiable; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow, their voracious appetite causing them instantly to devour their victims, laying nothing aside for the next day.
v. 4. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons, boastful and faithless knaves; her priests have polluted the Sanctuary, desecrating the Temple by their neglect of the prescribed sacrifices or by their blasphemous manner in offering them; they have done violence to the Law, simply setting aside the precepts of God whose guardians they were supposed to be.
v. 5. The just Lord is in the midst thereof, He, the righteous One, having left nothing untried; He will not do iniquity, He commits no wrong; every morning doth He bring His judgment to light, giving evidence of the justice of all His dealings; He faileth not, no blame, therefore, rests on Him. But the unjust knoweth no shame, the wicked people of Jerusalem are not influenced either by the example of God or by His threat of punishment.
v. 6. I have cut off the nations, also as an act of warning for Israel; their towers are desolate, their walls and fortresses leveled to the ground; I made their streets waste, the roads obliterated, that none passeth by their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant, all this being done, in part at least, to serve as an example of warning to the people of Jerusalem and Judah.
v. 7. I said, Surely thou wilt fear Me, the kindness and tenderness of the warning being emphasized; thou wilt receive instruction, if only thou wouldst suffer thyself to be taught!. So their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them, or, "in accordance with all that I had appointed concerning them"; that is, Jehovah hoped still to have mercy on them, so that He would not have to send the threatened punishment; but they rose early, zealous for their wicked works, and corrupted all their doings, they were eager to speed their perverted actions, their infamous deeds. Thus many a godless person refuses to heed the Lord's call to repentance and deliberately plunges all the more deeply into transgressions of every kind.